


Might As Well Do Your Worst To Me

by fireflyeskies



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 09:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9541958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflyeskies/pseuds/fireflyeskies
Summary: Post 'Death In Heaven'. One of the Osgood's died on the plane, Kate thinks she needs to know which died and which survived and whether 'her' Osgood is the original.Kate never loses control but everyone knows that Kate and Osgood (one of the Osgoods? Both? No one really knows, perhaps not even Kate herself) were close. As in probably breaking several different rules and regulations kind of close. And all of a sudden everyone is thinking the same thing, perhaps this will be the moment that Kate Stewart loses that iron-fisted grip on her temper and breaks.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Kate and one of the Osgoods were in a relationship before 'Death in Heaven' and Kate always just sort of assumed that ‘her’ Osgood, the one she’s involved with, was the human one, because she was the one she’d technically known the longest. Kate never actually asked and neither Osgood ever told her. When one of the Osgood’s dies on the plane Kate decides she has to know if ‘her’ Osgood is the human one after all.

 

The halls of UNIT HQ are dark tonight and a hush has fallen upon the few remaining behind, pretending to be working and avoiding the elephant in the room. Everyone is studiously trying to ignore the glaring absence in the lab. Trying to ignore that Kate’s office has been closed since it was slammed almost off its hinges an hour ago. Trying to ignore the muffled sounds of something being thrown and then shattering echoing all around the stone tunnels. Trying so very, very hard to ignore that one of the Osgood’s, the only Osgood now, is sitting in the corner of the lab she and her sister claimed for themselves turned away from the others and staring into space, eyes red-rimmed behind her glasses and face blank. Nobody talks, barely even look at one another really, nobody wants to confront the obvious and certainly not while Kate or Osgood are around.

At first it was odd suddenly having two Osgoods around the lab, both brilliant, both frequently the brightest person, people, in any given room and generally just as charmingly awkward as one another. Some of the other staff and officers found it jarring in the first few weeks to be working with what were essentially two minutely different versions of the same person.

But here at UNIT odd is really sort of standard fare; just _odd_ is a slow week for UNIT so before long having the Osgoods around became normal. So there’s an identical pair of cross-species scientists working at HQ mhmm, yeah sure that’s just another day at the office here. Now the absence of one of the sisters is felt keenly by all.

The suffocating atmosphere is broken at once by the ominous clicking of heels down the corridor and towards the lab. Kate looms in the doorway, dishevelled and exhausted but the look on her face alone has the handful of remaining staff quaking in their lab coats and considering fleeing for the hills. Kate’s not one for losing her temper ever but when she’s pissed off, oh hell does everyone know about it.

On any normal day Osgood would register that she should probably be worried for Kate, on any normal day she would probably rush to Kate, earnest and awkward and fumble her way around trying to cheer her up. It is anything but a normal day.

Kate appears to hesitate for a few moments and opens her mouth before snapping it shut again, jaw working and she looks as though she’s weighing something up in her head. Eventually she must come to a decision because she fixes that steely gaze on Osgood and steps further into the low light of the lab.

Nobody moves or dares to speak, barely dare to breathe too loudly. The air freezes stiff between them and Osgood faintly wonders somewhere if there might be some kind of scientific explanation for that, the way time and space seem to stretch and hold still when someone looks at you with that much intensity, that much emotion.

Kate’s a consummate professional and her grip on her temper is iron, Osgood isn’t sure she’s ever seen her really lose it, not fully, and inscrutable as the expression on her face is there’s an undercurrent of something simmering away below the surface, prickling beneath her skin, swimming in her eyes. Kate never loses control but everyone knows that Kate and Osgood (one of the Osgoods? Both? No one really knows, perhaps not even Kate herself) were close. As in probably breaking several different rules and regulations kind of _close_. And all of a sudden everyone is thinking the same thing, perhaps this will be the moment that Kate Stewart loses that iron-fisted grip on her temper and breaks.

“Human or Zygon?” she’s looking at Osgood, something hard and flinty and desperate in her gaze and the words in her throat sound like broken glass.

Osgood looks like she might start crying again.

Osgood’s just as good at keeping a handle on her emotions at Kate when it comes down to it, especially among colleagues at work. A lifetime of bullying and teasing has meant she’s learnt the hard way to stand up just that little bit straighter and keep all of her myriad insecurities on the inside where no one can get at them because as she had to learn very early on, people really can be very cruel.

But now she looks at Kate like she’s forgotten there are actually other people present and that they’re still at work and that Kate is and has only ever _officially_ been Osgood’s boss and nothing more. Kate has never been cruel to her, hardly ever been cruel to anyone in fact, it isn’t in her nature. She can be stern and stubborn and just occasionally slightly ruthless but never cruel and certainly never to Osgood.

“Kate” now Osgood sounds like she might be about to cry too.

“Human or Zygon?” Kate’s voice cracks at the last syllable and this crack in the armour of their fearless leader is clearly just a bit too much for the other lab techs still hanging around like spare parts and they decide now might be the best time to beat a hasty retreat. This is evidently not a conversation that anybody should be intruding on.

“Don’t do this Kate”

Kate moves into the room and halts before Osgood, the desk and a whole world of complicated feelings between them.

“I need to know”

“No you want to torture yourself Kate and I’m not playing” Osgood sighs heavily and makes to get up.

“Just tell me” Kate says forcefully through teeth gritted so hard they could shatter.

 Osgood can feel her throat start to constrict with the effort of not crying, not here, not now. Can feel tears pricking at her eyes anyway and of all the people she’d have thought would understand, wouldn’t push and pry the way everyone else does, here she is doing this. How could she?

She tries to round the desk and get away, anywhere but here but then Kate’s in the way and a once familiar, solid presence that has never before failed to make Osgood feel safe, protected, cared for now seems to almost bear down on her, drawn up to its full height and blocking her path.

Kate has never been cruel to her and certainly never tried to intimidate her, the irony of her wanting to know that she is the ‘real Osgood’ while here Kate is behaving like a woman Osgood is sure she’s never known. Osgood’s seen Kate get angry before of course, livid even, over a variety of things – the latest government budget cuts, Christmas day alien incursions, the changing whims of the prime minister and most recently a bull-headed certainty that some kind of hideous alien has managed to wrangle itself the presidency of the United States (Osgood has had to almost physically wrestle Kate away from the BBC evening news several times in the last few weeks alone).

Kate Stewart has the good old-fashioned stiff upper lip perfected down to a tee so when she gets angry and the cool British reserve slips it’s ever so slightly terrifying. Osgood has thankfully never had that anger directed at her but here in the moment she can see the façade slipping, the rage boiling below the surface and threatening to bubble over.

“Don’t do this Kate, please”

“Which. _One._ Who died on that plane? I have to know!” Kate sounds desperate, looks desperate, a muscle jumping in her neck and her jaw set tight.

The tears are rolling thick and fast down Osgood’s cheeks now, blurring her vision but she couldn’t care less. Anything to avoid looking at this, this Kate that she doesn’t know.

“Please Kate” she says so softly it’s almost a sob, ducks her head and tucks her chin to her chest in a hopeless bid to hide away from the woman before her.

It’s nigh on impossible to look attractive in anyway shape or form while you’re crying and anyone who says otherwise probably shouldn’t be trusted Osgood thinks. She’s certainly never been a pretty crier, all snotty-nosed and blotchy cheeks and then the way her throat grows tight and struggles and gasps for air. She’s not sure she’s ever cried in front of Kate either and she definitely doesn’t want to now.

The tears keep coming anyway though and then there’s a wheezing in her chest and she backs away to look for her inhaler amongst the organised chaos of the desk but then almost instantly it’s being held up in front of her face. Kate seems nearly as surprised as Osgood to find herself holding it out, like she hadn’t even meant to do it, moved on instinct to look out for Osgood like always, even at times when she doesn’t strictly need to be looked after.

Slowly she takes it from Kate’s minutely unsteady hands and takes a long breath in, feels the wheezing settle and then focuses on breathing in and out again normally. In and out, in and out, until she can look back up at Kate again without feeling the potential onset of a panic attack.

Kate for her part seems to not know what to do with herself, eyes downcast and her shoulders, those reliably strong shoulders of hers so accustomed to the weight of the world are slumped inwards. With one moment of accidental, automatic tenderness the rage and the bitterness has melted right out of her replaced by apparently what appears to be shame. She twists her hands together instead and shuffles to turn away from Osgood.

Osgood considers letting her go, for a tiny little split second she considers just letting Kate slink away back to her office and beat herself up over a bottle of whiskey for the rest of the night. She’d certainly deserve it. But it’s a split second and Osgood knows deep down, knows it like she knows the sky is blue and the sun is hot and water is wet that she could never let Kate Stewart go so easily.

“No Kate, don’t…” Osgood murmurs and grasps for one of Kate’s hands, her thumb catching on a shallow cut on the heel of her palm, a reminder that this woman fell out of an aeroplane today and lived. The same aeroplane her sister died on and in amongst all of that grief and hurt for her sister there’s the overwhelming relief that Kate is still here. Bruised and battered and angry but still here and now that Kate’s rage has cooled she’s once more recognisable as still being very much the Kate Stewart that she knows and loves.

“I-I’m sorry. Oh Osgood I’m so sorry” Kate says and her eyes are shining too now and guilt is etched into every line in her face. Kate prides herself on her ram-rod sense of honour, of what’s proper and moral and all of those other things her father taught her to be. Osgood can see that she’s horrified now by the breach of that sense of honour.

“I know, I know. It’s alright” Osgood says softly and after half a second’s deliberation pulls Kate in and curls her arms tight around her waist.

If it were anyone else, anyone else at all and Osgood likely wouldn’t have forgiven them and certainly not quite so quickly but then she knows that Kate’s barbed words from anyone else wouldn’t have hurt nearly as much. And even besides that she also knows that she’ll probably always forgive Kate, would probably forgive Kate anything.

Kate is stiff in her arms though, tension in every muscle and bone even when Osgood clasps her tighter, tucks her head into the crook of Kate’s neck and brushes the faintest trace of a kiss over her pulse.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that Osgood I’m-”

“Stop apologising”

“Sorr-” she breaks off and sighs “I- I really shouldn’t have said any of those things Osgood I really _am_ sorry. That was very cruel of me.”

“Yes, it was” Osgood mumbles into her neck and feels Kate tense up even tighter, the skin at her neck taut and her pulse hammering out an irregular beat “But I forgive you. It’s been a very long, very scary kind of day and we’re both upset”

“I never want to hurt you Osgood” Kate whispers her voice hoarse and drained but resolute, the sheer exhaustion of the day settling heavily over them both.

“I know. And I’m sure you’ll think of a way to make it up to me”

“I’m sor-”

“Stop” Osgood pulls back and fixes Kate with the sternest glare she can manage despite the tear tracks and the snot and the slight croak in her voice “I love you Kate Stewart you know that. You’ve apologised and I've forgiven you so stop”

Kate relaxes a little in her embrace and Osgood feels some of the tension drain from her limbs a little. A tiny quirk of an almost smile sneaks its way onto her face then, a distant imitation of the smile that those three little words usually light up on Kate’s face when Osgood says them.

“Now look at me. Look at me and tell me, do you really need to know if I’m human or zygon?” Osgood says and braces for the answer.

Kate looks pensive for a moment before answering “There’s a little bit of me that will always wonder I think. But no, no I don’t think I do need to know” she says eventually and finally curls her arms around Osgood, one hand reaching up to stroke her cheek gently “You’re Osgood. And I love you too. That’s what matters”

Osgood just about has to remind herself not to start crying again because that was the right answer, it really, really was and she wholly appreciates that Kate was honest. Of course there’s a little piece of her scientist’s mind that will always wonder, after having their memories wiped and rewritten and altered so often it’d be a miracle if she didn’t question it sometimes. But at the heart of it, at the heart of _them_ it doesn’t matter. They can be Just Osgood and Just Kate and that is what matters.

The moment stretches out and Osgood smiles soft and weary and Kate seems to realise that she’s finally said the right thing because the guilt starts to seep away a bit and is replaced by a small, haltingly bashful smile of her own.

Osgood is debating whether kissing Kate while still a bit snotty and a bit teary would ruin the moment when Kate effectively makes the decision for her and draws her in for a kiss that is yes, a bit wet and a bit snotty but still rather perfect despite everything. As kisses go they’ve both had better but right now they are all eclipsed entirely by this one. Gentle and desperate, peaceful and frantic all at the same time because Kate nearly died today and Osgood could so easily have died, her other half, her sister, _did_ die and there’s relief and anguish and so much love they can barely contain it in one kiss.

The tension seems to drain from the both of them all at once when they pull back and they simply stand for a minute or two foreheads touching and soaking in the quiet and the stillness of the end of one of the longest days in their (admittedly somewhat warped) memories.

“Home?” Kate murmurs after a while.

“Yes please. Pizza?”

“Pizza. And then bed”

“Okay”

They’re both exhausted and both hurting, in days to come it will probably only hurt even more. Osgood has lost her sister, the sister that quite literally knew her inside and out and whom she loved like she’d never loved her actual sister. It will be difficult and painful and this particular long, long day is more than likely only the first of many long, long days yet but Osgood thinks that perhaps with Kate by her side, holding her up and sharing the burden they might just make it after all.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The logistics of the two Osgoods and UNIT and the Zygons and how exactly Kate/Osgood would even reasonably fit into all of that frankly baffles me and doesn’t seem to make sense no matter which way I try and figure it out so just go with me on all this. 
> 
> 2\. I realise that Death in Heaven aired in 2014, long before that ridiculous orange tit even ran for president but I couldn’t resist the idea of Kate Stewart ranting at the news, convinced that he is in fact some kind of hideous alien monster here to invade earth because come on she so would.
> 
> 3\. Title is from Get Hurt by The Gaslight Anthem.


End file.
